Chapter Nineteen - Evie
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Evie
I COULDN’T QUIT thinking about whatever it was we saw in the dark inside the passage because it had felt familiar.
And that scared me on a whole other level because it felt familiar the way Luc had, like its name was on the tip of my tongue.
Like I was standing too close to something I shouldn’t have known and somehow did anyway.
But at the same time, this was different. Luc had felt like someone I already belonged to that made no sense and still fit. This felt older and stranger, and something inside was screaming at me to go back and find it.
I could still see it if I let myself, just for a second, that silhouette standing there at the edge of the passage, too still everywhere except at the head, where something shifted in a way human hair absolutely did not. And that was fucking terrifying.
It sounded crazy, but I could’ve sworn it looked like fucking Medusa. Tall and wrong and feminine in some ancient, terrifying way, with snakes writhing where hair should’ve been.
Maybe I imagined all of it. Maybe the dark had done what dark does and made everything worse. But I wasn’t so sure. And there was no way in hell I was telling Mara any of this.
She was already looking at me like I was one bad decision away from getting myself crucified. If I told her any of this, she’d either chain me to the bed or knock me unconscious with the tray. Or… tell Him.
So I kept my mouth shut. But Mara was still watching me, arms folded tight over her chest, face caught somewhere between fear and annoyance.
“Well?” she asked.
I dragged my gaze off the wall and looked at her. “Well, what?”
“If you’re about to do something stupid, I’d like a little warning so I can fully hate it in advance.”
I cracked a grin, but I said, “Don’t come with me this time.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m serious.”
Her expression flattened. “Cute.”
“Mara, seriously.”
“No.”
We stared at each other, and I started to think that maybe I was rubbing off on her. Mara had started looking at me with the same kind of dry, unimpressed snark I usually reserved for everyone else. It was almost enough to make me proud.
Something warm flickered low in my chest before I could stop it. Maybe we were becoming friends. Or maybe it was just the stupid relief of not feeling alone for one second in this place.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, and hated how much I wanted her to believe me.
Her laugh was short and joyless. “That is exactly the kind of sentence people say right before something rips their face off.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that came out of me, but I still looked back at the wall.
“I’m just going to check it out one more time.”
“That’s not reassuring either,” she said flatly.
“It’s not supposed to be.”
“Evie.”
I turned back to her. “Listen to me. If something’s in there, if it’s still in there, I just… need to see it without worrying about you.”
Something in her face shifted, irritation giving way to hurt so fast it made my chest tighten.
“You think I can’t handle myself.”
“No,” I said, softer now. “I think if something goes wrong, I’d rather it happens to me than to you because you followed me.”
“That is not any better.”
“It’s the truth.”
She looked away first, jaw tightening.
But then, I said, “And—I can defend myself with my magic.”
She looked back at me and asked flatly, “Can you really?”
For a second, I thought she was going to keep fighting me just to be difficult, which, honestly, she should’ve. But she twisted her hands together and exhaled hard through her nose.
“You really think you need to do this alone?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes came back to mine. There was fear there, and intelligence too. The kind of reluctant calculation people made right before letting you do something they hated because they knew trying to stop you would only make you more determined.
Finally, she said, “Fine.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That was suspiciously easy.”
“It wasn’t easy,” she snapped. “But I’m pretty sure if I keep arguing, you’ll wait until I leave and do it anyway.”
That was annoyingly accurate.
I lifted one shoulder. “Maybe.”
“Don’t maybe me.” She pointed at me. “You can go look if you absolutely have to, but you do not go far.”
I opened my mouth.
“No,” she said immediately. “You do not get to argue that part. You crack it open, you look, you listen, and if anything feels wrong, you come right back.”
I gave her a look. “Anything feels wrong? Mara, everything about this place feels wrong.”
“You know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I’m serious, Evie. If you see that thing again, come back. If you hear something weird, come back. Anything… come back. Immediately.”
I tried not to smile.
She saw it anyway and glared harder. “This is not funny.”
“It’s not funny. It’s… sweet.”
“It absolutely is not.”
That got a breath of laughter out of me, thin and tired but real.
Mara’s face softened for half a second before she caught herself. Then she folded her arms again. “Please, Evie. I consider you my friend, and I’ve… never had a friend before. Stay close enough that if you scream, I can hear you.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
I looked at the marble, then down at my hands.
The warmth was still there, banked low beneath my skin, not blazing, just waiting. It moved when I thought about the passage, like it recognized the shape of what I wanted before I reached for it.
Behind me, Mara said, quieter now, “And if it’s there?”
I didn’t know what I’d do if I saw it again, only that some strange, reckless part of me was hoping I would.
Hoping it was still there. Hoping I could get closer this time, close enough to see it properly.
Close enough to figure out why it felt familiar.
Maybe close enough to talk to it, if that wasn’t the stupidest thought I’d ever had.
Finally, I said, “Then I’ll know I’m not imagining things.”
Mara made a face like she hated every word in that sentence. “Great,” she muttered. “That definitely makes me feel better.”
I pressed my palm flat to the wall. At once, the marble answered. The seam breathed gold beneath my hand, faint at first, then brighter, sketching itself from floor to ceiling.
Mara went still behind me.
“Evie,” she said. “Don’t go far. Okay?”
“I won’t,” I answered, but I didn’t look back at her. I just watched the seam widen to a slit. Cool air slipped through, carrying that same hidden scent, old stone, dust, and the underside of perfection.
I hesitated, not because of the dark, but because of that awful, impossible tug in my chest every time I thought about what we saw.
Then, just before I took a step, I glanced back at Mara. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, you can panic.”
Her expression turned murderous. “That’s not funny either.”
“No,” I said, slipping into the dark. “It really isn’t.”
The seam sealed behind me with a hush so soft it barely counted as sound.
And I was alone. The corridor felt narrower without Mara at my back.
Colder too. The little pulse of gold that had lit the walls before was weaker now, more felt than seen, a thread under my skin instead of a lantern in my hand.
Enough to keep the black from swallowing me whole.
Not enough to make any of this feel smart.
I moved slowly, one palm skimming the rough stone. That same impossible tug kept pulling at me. That familiar feeling in a way that made my pulse stumble every time I let myself think about it too hard. I hated that I wanted to find it again.
The corridor split ahead, the same two-way fork we’d seen earlier, one passage curving left, one right, both swallowed in black. I paused there, listening.
There was nothing, no movement. No whisper.
No waiting silhouette. I picked the right-hand path again and kept going.
The farther I walked, the more foolish I felt.
My own breathing sounded too loud in the passage.
My bare feet made almost no sound against the stone, but I still kept imagining something hearing me, tracking me, smiling in the dark with sharp teeth while I stumbled toward it like a complete idiot.
Mara was going to kill me. If I walked any further, there was no way she wouldn’t start panicking. And then—the corridor bent.
Then it bent again. But still, there was nothing. And disappointment settled low in my stomach, stupid and irrational. What the hell was wrong with me that I was disappointed I hadn’t run into a monster?
I slowed anyway, staring into the black ahead, half hoping the shape would step out of it, half praying it wouldn’t.
“Evie.”
The whisper drifted through the passage like ash carried on a dying wind. I jumped so hard my shoulder slammed into the wall. My heart was racing. Where was it coming from?
I spun in a full circle, looking everywhere and nowhere, but it was too dark, too close, too full of corners that looked like people if I stared at them long enough. I reached inward on instinct, calling for my power. But it didn’t come. There was no answering flicker. I couldn’t feel the warmth.
I was too scared. Panic was in my throat, in my hands, in the stupid shallow drag of my breath, and the power refused to come.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“Evie.” That same singsong voice, closer this time. My skin went cold all over as I took a shaky breath.
This, I thought wildly, was exactly how the girl always died in a horror movie. Too curious. Too dumb to stay out of bad places. Walking alone into the dark because apparently, survival instincts were just a suggestion at this point.
I backed up one step. Then another. I was definitely ready to turn around when—
The corridor ahead filled with white smoke. It breathed into the passage in slow, pale ribbons, gathering itself where the dark had been deepest. My pulse thudded so hard I could feel it in my teeth. But I couldn’t look away.
The smoke thickened. A shape formed inside it, tall and feminine. The smoke peeled away like veils being lifted, and a woman stepped through.